


Not a Phase

by phoenixgal



Series: Scenes from a Life [11]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bisexuality, Coming Out, F/M, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter Friendship, Homophobia, M/M, Queer Het, happy marriage, metamours, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 19:45:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10394706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixgal/pseuds/phoenixgal
Summary: When Harry hears a rumor about his son, he realizes he probably should have been more honest with him earlier.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly a parenting and friendship fic, but there's a tiny bit of smut at the end.

Harry pulled the final books out of their box and placed them on the shelf, looking around the new office. He kept having moments of surprise that this was his office now, and that he was in charge of half the department. It seemed like only yesterday that he'd been a junior auror, with Ron as his partner, learning the ropes and dealing with bringing in Death Eaters still on the run or figuring out how to take care of all the things Voldemort left behind.

Now those things were mostly done. Trials were all over, Death Eaters imprisoned. Ron had moved on from the Ministry. Everything was different.

Outside his office, he watched as Julianna Marsh walked past his windows, making a face at him. The windows looked out into where the general auror staff had their desks as well as into the library. Julianna was one of the dark artifact investigators. She wasn't an auror, but one of their specialists. She curled her lips, flared her nostrils, and raised one eyebrow, pointing with one oddly angled finger toward him and the other toward his door. He knew exactly what she was trying to say. How could he possibly be in the big boss office.

Harry made a gruesome face back at her, one that including sticking out his tongue. She descended into silent giggles as he pretended to leer at her from across the glass.

“Harry, I don't know what you think you're doing, but that can't possibly be appropriate behavior in the workplace. Do I need to refer you to the manual about sexual harassment?”

Harry quickly righted his face, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Jules was practically on the floor laughing at him, drawing attention from the desks around hers. With his attention on her, he hadn't noticed anything else, not even Hermione approaching his door from around the corner.

“Oh, hello, Hermione. I wouldn't worry. It's just Jules. I hardly think she's going to file a complaint on me.”

Hermione sighed. “Really, Harry. You never know. You wouldn't believe some of the things that have come across my desk in the last couple of years. How well do you even know her anyway? How do you know she won't file a complaint if you make faces at her?”

Harry occasionally had moments like this, where he remembered that sometimes the different bits of his life didn't always mesh. Julianna had been sleeping with his wife off and on for years. He'd seen her naked, in his own bed, on more than one occasion. In the last few years, they'd become closer on their own since she'd joined the Ministry. But, of course, Hermione didn't know that.

“Um, I just do,” Harry said mildly. “We're doing lunch, right?”

“Yes,” she said, with a grin. “But please tell me you have Muggle clothes so we can pop out for a curry instead of going to the cafeteria. If I don't get out of here and into the fleeting sunlight, I'll go stir crazy for sure.”

He hadn't even paid attention to the fact that Hermione wasn't in her normal legal robes but had on a plain blue dress and had a blue headband taming her bushy hair.

He nodded. “I have jeans and an old t-shirt under my robes.”

A few minutes later, they were leaving the Ministry via the public toilets. They emerged into the neighborhood and began walking toward a little restaurant with warm aromas wafting forward. They took the last table outside on the sidewalk. It wasn't warm precisely, but it wasn't cold and it was brightly sunny, which made it close enough for a London spring.

Hermione did the ordering for them both while Harry held the table, reading a Muggle paper that someone had left behind. He wanted to bring in more specialists and thought a Muggle law enforcement specialist would make a great deal of sense, though he wasn't sure where they would find such a person. Perhaps there was a squib or a family member who had already cleared the international secrecy rules.

The food was hot and spicy in a way that cleared Harry's sinuses. Unlike Harry, whose office had a lot of Muggle born witches and wizards, Hermione's did not. Between that and their shared, oversized wizarding family, and he often felt like she used him to be her Muggle born friend, the person who could venture with confidence into a Muggle cafe with her and blend in. Not that he minded. It was just funny to see Hermione, who had grown so used to the wizarding world that he suspected she would likely be the first female Minister for Magic in many years, have this need to step out and get a curry or go to the Muggle shops sometimes. He noted that all her shoes were Muggle. She had no patience for the fussy shoes most of the witches in the Ministry wore.

So they talked about Muggle politics and the paper and how Hermione's parents were doing in retirement.

“Last week, I got up to Hogsmeade on business, so I stayed and saw the kids on Saturday,” she said and Harry recognized a note of something in her voice that meant she was coming around to a delicate topic.

“Oh, that's right. Everything well?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Rosie thinks she might be Head Girl next year but she doesn't want to get her hopes up.”

“Must be gratifying to see that,” Harry said. “You got robbed of your own chance.”

Hermione shrugged. “Well, we were rather too busy that year,” she said.

“Good for Rose,” Harry said. “I hope she gets it.”

“Me too,” Hermione said. “Anyway, I don't like to gossip about the kids, but I did ask about the cousins and Hugo shared something and I wasn't sure if I should pass it on or not.”

“If Albus has been kicked out of school, I suppose I want to know,” Harry said, laughing slightly. There had been no owls home all year about Albus, which was quite a relief. Over the holidays, he'd been almost nice to everyone, as if the worst of his sullen teenage years were finally behind him. And James having graduated seemed to have eased their rivalry. 

“No, nothing like that,” Hermione said slowly.

“Okay, out with it,” Harry said. “What's Al done now?”

“It's not that he's done anything really,” Hermione said. “I don't like to spread gossip, it's just that Hugo was a trifle rude and said it was common knowledge and it seemed a bit awkward that if all the kids and some of us parents know but you and Ginny wouldn't...”

Harry couldn't help but imagine what she might be talking about. His mind briefly pictured Albus with a prominent Slytherin tattoo. That would be just like him too, he thought. “Just say it,” Harry said.

“Well, like I said, I did reprimand Hugo for calling names, but apparently Al and Scorpius went to the Valentine's dance together. As a couple. They were pretty enthusiastic about, um, displaying their affections, I guess. It's been the talk of the school.”

“Oh.” Part of Harry wanted to say to Hermione, is that all? It wasn't exactly unexpected. He'd seen the way the boys were with each other.

But another part of him felt like he had just been hit with a dozen stunning spells. He had thought that he and Al were on decent footing, but apparently everyone knew this but him. Not just the cousins, but all of Hogwarts. His own son had felt comfortable enough to snog his best friend, who was apparently his boyfriend now, at a public dance where everyone could see, but he hadn't felt comfortable enough to tell his own father that he was gay.

Hermione apparently misinterpreted his silence. “Harry, you know it's different now than it used to be. And it's really acceptable in the Muggle world. They can even get married and have kids and all that. It's not like it was years ago. And even the wizarding world is changing. There have been a couple of discrimination cases, you know. There was an apothecary in Hogsmeade that claimed they were subject of a curse based on the fact that the owner was gay. He didn't win the case, but there was a lot of sympathy. Really, things are getting better. It's not...”

Harry wasn't sure what look exactly he gave Hermione as he stared at her across the remnants of his food. He wasn't hungry anymore and the suddenly weather felt chillier despite the sunshine. Hermione's speech was well intended, but it was so patronizing. He felt like he had on his blank face, the one he tried to put on for the press when it was required, but apparently it was something else. Or maybe Hermione just knew him well enough to see through it.

“Oh, Harry,” she said. “I didn't mean to make you so upset. It might just be a phase you know. I seem to remember you thought for a little while… Well, maybe it's just a growing up thing.”

A strange sense of anger welled up inside him. Harry fought the urge to stand up and walk away from the cafe. He wasn't even sure what he wanted to do. Part of him wanted to run to Ginny and part of him wanted to run away.

He didn't do either of those things.

“I don't know why you think I'm so upset,” he told Hermione. “Really, it's not a big deal.”

She looked at him curiously but after a little bit, she resumed eating, finishing up her meal. Harry said he wasn't hungry and they walked back to the Ministry, making more small talk. Harry forced himself to keep up his end of the conversation.

Harry shoved all his feelings about Albus aside and tried to focus on his work for the day. He mostly succeeded. There was plenty to focus on. They had a case going against a shop on Knockturn Alley that had been selling cursed jewelry and a massive investigation underway looking into a small wizarding cult in the south that might have been using the imperious curse.

Around five o'clock, Julianna poked her head in to say good evening and make a face at him. When Harry didn't give much response, she came into the office all the way. “Okay there, Harry?”

“I…” Harry started then stopped.

Julianna closed the door and leaned against the back. Her short hair was dyed blue and her lipstick matched. She looked at him and waited.

“Hermione tried to explain that it's all right that some wizards are gay to me today,” Harry said, his voice oddly tight.

“Well, bless her heart,” Julianna said.

Harry raised his eyebrows. Sometimes Julianna had odd expressions from America.

“It's a nice way to say fuck her,” Julianna explained.

“Oh,” Harry said, taken aback. He hadn't realized it, but that's rather how he felt.

“Did you tell her where she could shove her kind sentiments? Perhaps that a little more legal protections in the workplace would be a nice thing rather that the approval of the great Hermione Granger-Weasley?”

Harry chuckled but then looked serious. “Fuck. No. Way to make me feel even worse, Jules. Now I feel guilty.”

Julianna shrugged. “Well, next time.”

Harry's eyes tightened. “I don't… Ginny is much better at this than I am.”

“Yep,” Julianna agreed. She paused, looking serious. “You know, Harry, when Ginny and I first hooked up, I didn't really like you. Not in a jealous kind of way. I mean, you know I'm all in for the poly love and all that. No, more like I didn't really respect that you were so closeted. Or that anyone with Ginny was expected to be discrete on your behalf. I came out as a teenager. I couldn't even imagine the idea of trying to discrete. And I thought, okay, this guy could do a lot more good if he'd just be honest with everyone.

“But, now I know you,” she continued. “And, I kind of get it. You have this amazing ability to compartmentalize like no one else. And it's because you've had to protect yourself. People like to use you and use your name and you've kind of been screwed over several times, not to mention all the shit you've survived. You're a survivor. So I finally came around to the idea that you'd earned your privacy. Like, it's no one's business but your own.”

“Thanks, Jules,” Harry said, feelingly.

“So, like I said, bless Hermione Granger-Weasley's little heart for thinking she can tell you any fucking thing about being queer.” Harry could hear the sarcasm dripping in Julianna's words.

“I wish I could hug you, but I've already gotten one warning about my professional behavior today,” Harry said.

Julianna laughed. “I originally came in here to tell you I was going to go see if Ginny wanted to get a drink, but I'm thinking now you need her more than me. Besides, I wouldn't mind seeing a few other friends.”

Harry nodded. “Thanks, again.”

He finished up the things he needed to do as the office emptied out. As he packed up for the weekend, he thought about what he'd say to Ginny and he head started to swirl and his chest felt tight.

And before he knew what he was doing, Harry found himself on the fifth floor instead of headed toward the lobby.

Hermione's department was mostly emptied out, but she was still in her office. He knocked on the door and let himself inside as she told him to open it.

“Harry, what are you doing here?” she asked.

He shut the door behind him and sat in the chair across from her desk. Hermione's office was piled with legal books from floor to ceiling behind her desk and the furniture was oddly old fashioned. The chair across from her desk was a wingback with ornately carved feet.

“It's not a phase,” Harry said. “It's not. Don't call it that. It's so dismissive.”

“What?” She looked confused. “You mean Albus? Oh, I...”

“And it wasn't a phase for me either.”

A silence hung between them. Hermione was so rarely rendered speechless that he was almost pulled out of his emotional space to be amused that he'd managed to leave her without anything to say.

“So, you don't need to tell me what it's like to be queer in the wizarding world, Hermione. I already know. And one of the things I know is that it's not always easy.”

Harry knew if he stayed, that Hermione, who had to spell everything out, would want to know details. She would want to put labels on things he didn't like to label. She would need to talk it out.

He stood up.

“Harry, wait,” Hermione said. “I didn't mean...”

“It's fine, Hermione,” he said. “I just needed to say that. But now I really need to get home to my wife and dissect all the ways that I've completely fucked up as a parent.”

“Harry,” she said, sounding very small in a way he couldn't remember her sounding in years.

“We'll talk another time,” he said.

By the time he was out at the Floo networks in the center of the lobby, he found he was shaking. He threw the powder into the grate and stumbled out at home into his own fireplace and then his own sitting room.

Everything was quiet in the house. He made himself yellow cherry tea and sat with it on the sofa for awhile, turning everything over in his head, trying to ease the tightness in his chest.

When Ginny walked in later, she came through the front door cheerful and bright.

“First batch of summer quidditch sign ups!” she announced. “It's going to be twice as big as last year, I swear. We're going to end up with eight teams at minimum. And I had an inquiry from a summer youth league in France. We may be able to go play an exhibition match against their best players at the end of the summer. Wouldn't that be brilliant?”

She dropped the shopping when she saw the look on Harry's face. “What's happened?”

“Nothing like that,” he said. He knew how she thought. It was hard to be an auror's spouse. The world was safe these days, but aurors still died.

“Then what?”

Harry, with what control he could muster, explained the gossip Hermione had reluctantly passed on to him.

She nodded carefully and sat next to him on the sofa. “He said something to me at Christmas,” she admitted quietly. “Nothing so certain. Just that he wasn't sure if he liked girls. It...” she paused. “He said it almost like a joke. Or maybe a question. And you and I have talked about it a bit. I thought he was working his way up to figuring it out or maybe trying to gauge my reaction if he did come out to us. I didn't think he was working his way up to snogging Scorpius at a school dance.”

Harry huffed.

“I know how you feel,” she said in a hushed voice.

“Do you?” He didn't mean to sound so harsh, but the noise exploded from him slightly.

“Like you now have to come out to your own kid?” she asked. “Like you probably should have done it sooner so any internal turmoil he might have had over your acceptance wouldn't exist? I know that's how I felt when he said that. But I wasn't ready to talk about it, I suppose.”

“Fuck,” Harry swore. Part of him wanted Ginny not to get it. He wanted someone to yell at.

“We agreed when the kids were little not to bring them into any of our sex lives. And I still think that was right,” Ginny said. “But now James is practically grown up, living on his own. And Al is figuring out his own sexuality. And I feel like we owe it to them to be more honest. But it also seems like we've left it for too late.”

“Why didn't he tell me?” Harry said. He didn't want it to emerge like a whine, but it did.

“It's hard to tell your parents these things,” Ginny said gently. The unspoken implication was that he wouldn't know because he had never had parents to tell anything to. Harry shoved it mentally aside.

“Harder than telling the whole bloody school apparently!”

“Yes, harder. Because what we think matters. You know Al and Scorpius could care less what any of their peers think. And they know their cousins will love them no matter what.”

“We'll love them no matter what!” Harry knew it was irrational, but he was glad to be working up to the yelling he so desperately wanted to do.

“Of course we will,” Ginny said.

And that's when it hit Harry. Of course he would love Albus no matter what. Albus was his son. His mischievous, sullen, passionate, ambitious, brilliant son. 

But maybe Albus wouldn't love him anymore. He already didn't trust Harry enough to come out to him. Once Harry revealed that he also was queer, and that his parents' marriage wasn't the same under the surface as he might have thought, then what would Albus think? Would he feel betrayed? Would he think they were liars? No one wanted to think about their parents having sex. Would he be disgusted by them? Disgusted by their morality or lack thereof?

“What if he hates me for it?” Harry said, feeling the force go out of his anger. Now there was just regret.

“He won't,” Ginny said.

“To be out to the whole school at sixteen? To not give a fuck on a grand scale? And then to find out your own father has been keeping his penchant for sleeping with men a secret from you all your life? He might, Gin. If it's a matter of principle for him, I think he will.” Harry bowed his head and ran his hands through his hair. “Fuck.”

Ginny's arms came around him and he saw the tail end of her reddish braid by his face. She was comforting, but not contradicting him, he noticed.

“I saw Jules before I left work,” he said. “She told me I was entitled to my privacy but I can't help feeling guilty.”

“You have nothing to be guilty about,” Ginny insisted.

“But I do. And doubly guilty for you,” Harry said, sitting back up. “If I was more open, maybe I could have made things easier for Albus. Maybe we both could have. Or made more of an influence on the laws. Hermione had the fucking nerve to bring up Trevor's case, as if it was some sort of a good thing that people were sympathetic instead of just utterly outraged that magical law enforcement caught the guy who cursed his shop and then let him off with nothing but a slap on the wrist.”

“Oh, Harry,” Ginny said. “You can't take that on. He's obviously doing all right if he can go to a school dance and snog in public.”

“Hermione said Hugo was calling him names.”

Ginny snorted. They both knew if it was going to be any of the cousins, it would be Hugo. “I'm sure Hermione gave him an earful about it,” she said. “Rose probably did too if she heard him.”

Harry shrugged. “Who knows what other hassles they're getting though.”

“Look, I used to chafe about our marriage and our arrangement. And I did a lot of bloody stupid things as a result sometimes. But we're still here. We're good. The kids are good. If we had to deal with Witch Weekly debating whether or not it was acceptable that we sleep with other people, following those people around, speculating about who they are, calling us homophobic names, then who knows where we'd be or how it would be for the kids. Maybe not so good. You've got to let it go.”

Harry nodded.

“Come to bed,” Ginny said.

“We haven't even had supper,” Harry objected.

“So? We'll have supper later.”

Harry laughed. “That's your answer for everything.”

“Only because it's a universal cure.”

She straddled him on the sofa, leaning over to kiss him. His hands went automatically to her hips. She was so strong, he thought, as their mouths met and he began to let himself get lost in the kiss and the curling of tongues. His fingers tugged her shirt from her trousers and went up her back then came around to her breasts. He played at her nipples through her thin, Muggle sports bra then ran a finger under the thick elastic material and drifted down over her belly.

“Or we could just stay here,” she said.

It was easy, Harry thought. More than twenty years of being in love with Ginny and she still made him this happy. It wasn't always easy. It had never been perfect. But they had made their mistakes together.

“Mmm,” Harry said as she used tongue and teeth on his earlobe. “But all the good toys are upstairs.”

Ginny laughed. “Fine,” she said, giving a final kiss to his neck. “But if I get up, you know I'm going to put away the shopping and by the time I do that, I may as well make supper.”

Harry smiled. “Good things come to those who wait.”

The problem of Albus still bothered him, but he at least knew what he needed to do. He would have to go up to Hogsmeade the following weekend and have lunch with Al. His heart pounded in his chest thinking about explaining himself to his son.

As Ginny put soup on and set a quick cook charm on it, Harry helped put away the food and tidy up the table's leftover breakfast dishes. He kept turning over what he was going to have to say, both in the owl to Albus the next day to tell him he'd be coming up and in the conversation they'd have.

“Oh, bloody hell,” he said suddenly.

“What?” Ginny asked, pausing before she could bring the spoon to her lips to taste.

“I've just realized I'm going to have to do the sex talk over again,” he said.

Ginny laughed. “It's your own fault. At least I covered girls with Lily!”

“It was such a disaster the first time,” Harry complained. “Both conversations, with James and Albus.”

“So you get a do over.”

Harry groaned. “I'm being punished. The world is punishing me.”

Ginny chuckled again as she served out soup.

By the time they got to bed, Harry felt worn out by the emotions of the day. He was thrilled when Ginny said with some authority, “Get naked and get on the bed. On your front.” He let out the breath he hadn't even fully known he'd been holding in.

Harry still occasionally felt a pang of guilt about his desire to be used and mildly dominated in bed, but he didn't feel it today. Sometimes he liked to watch Ginny as she got ready to fuck him. He liked to touch her as she got the toys ready, even to be the one to fit the bright pink bulbous end of the double sided dildo inside her and set the sticking charms. Tonight, he was content to lay face down on the bed and close his eyes and just wait and be.

When she pushed his thighs apart and entered him, she pushed his hands down onto the bed and he felt the strength in her muscles as she pressed all the way against him, her breasts at his back. It was perfect. She talked to him throughout, just saying stupid things about how much she loved him, how beautiful he was. She knew just how to move for him, the size of the dildo perfect inside him, making him feel full and stretched and open. Eventually she moved one hand to his back and arched up. He knew she was touching herself.

“Bring yourself off,” she ordered after she had fucked him like that for a few minutes. And yes, he was ready. To be told to let go was perfect too. So he got a hand to his straining erection and stroked himself as he listened to Ginny cry out and moan and felt the pounding of her hips and the fullness of the dildo and the mild pain of her fingernails digging into his back and the limited air of the mattress pressed to his face and all the sensations came together letting him forget everything and just release.

Ginny cast all the clean up spells and pulled on knickers and a loose shirt. He liked to sleep naked.

“Don't go to sleep yet,” she said as she climbed in behind him. “I've forgotten what time the roof repair man is coming tomorrow.”

“Not until ten,” he murmured, wanting so much to drift off.

“Perfect,” she said. “Right. Then you have my permission to sleep.” Her hand rested on his back and her head right next to his, practically on the same pillow.

“Yes, ma'am,” he said sleepily.


End file.
